Chapter Fourteen

Four inert bodies sank through spinning blackness. Consciousness had
died, cold oblivion pulled the bodies down and down into the pit of
unbeing. The roar of silence echoed dismally around them and they sank
at last into a dark and bitter sea of heaving red that slowly engulfed
them, seemingly for ever.

After what seemed an eternity the sea receded and left them lying on a
cold hard shore, the flotsam and jetsam of the stream of Life, the
Universe, and Everything.

Cold spasms shook them, lights danced sickeningly around them. The
cold hard shore tipped and span and then stood still. It shone darkly
--- it was a very highly polished cold hard shore.

A green blur watched them disapprovingly.

It coughed.

``Good evening, madam, gentlemen,'' it said, ``do you have a
reservation?''

Ford Prefect's consciousness snapped back like elastic, making his
brain smart. He looked up woozily at the green blur.

``Reservation?'' he said weakly. ``Yes, sir,'' said the green blur.

``Do you need a reservation for the afterlife?''

In so far as it is possible for a green blur to arch its eyebrows
disdainfully, this is what the green blur now did.

``Afterlife, sir?'' it said.

Arthur Dent was grappling with his consciousness the way one grapples
with a lost bar of soap in the bath.

``Is this the afterlife?'' he stammered.

``Well I assume so,'' said Ford Prefect trying to work out which way
was up. He tested the theory that it must lie in the opposite
direction from the cold hard shore on which he was lying, and
staggered to what he hoped were his feet.

``I mean,'' he said, swaying gently, ``there's no way we could have
survived that blast is there?''

``No,'' muttered Arthur. He had raised himself on to his elbows but it
didn't seem to improve things. He slumped down again.

``No,'' said Trillian, standing up, ``no way at all.''

A dull hoarse gurgling sound came from the floor. It was Zaphod
Beeblebrox attempting to speak. ``I certainly didn't survive,'' he
gurgled, ``I was a total goner. Wham bang and that was it.''

``Yeah, thanks to you,'' said Ford, ``We didn't stand a chance. We
must have been blown to bits. Arms, legs everywhere.''

``Yeah,'' said Zaphod struggling noisily to his feet.

``If the lady and gentlemen would like to order drinks ...'' said the
green blur, hovering impatiently beside them.

``Kerpow, splat,'' continued Zaphod, ``instantaneously zonked into our
component molecules. Hey, Ford,'' he said, identifying one of the
slowly solidifying blurs around him, ``did you get that thing of your
whole life flashing before you?''

``You got that too?'' said Ford, ``your whole life?''

``Yeah,'' said Zaphod, ``at least I assume it was mine. I spent a lot
of time out of my skulls you know.''

He looked at around him at the various shapes that were at last
becoming proper shapes instead of vague and wobbling shapeless shapes.

``So ...'' he said.

``So what?'' said Ford.

``So here we are,'' said Zaphod hesitantly, ``lying dead ...''

``Standing,'' Trillian corrected him.

``Er, standing dead,'' continued Zaphod, ``in this desolate ...''

``Restaurant,'' said Arthur Dent who had got to his feet and could
now, much to his surprise, see clearly. That is to say, the thing that
surprised him was not that he could see, but what he could see.

``Here we are,'' continued Zaphod doggedly, ``standing dead in this
desolate ...''

``Five star ...'' said Trillian.

``Restaurant,'' concluded Zaphod.

``Odd isn't it?'' said Ford.

``Er, yeah.''

``Nice chandeliers though,'' said Trillian.

They looked about themselves in bemusement.

``It's not so much an afterlife,'' said Arthur, ``more a sort of apres
vie.''

The chandeliers were in fact a little on the flashy side and the low
vaulted ceiling from which they hung would not, in an ideal Universe,
have been painted in that particular shade of deep turquoise, and even
if it had been it wouldn't have been highlighted by concealed
moodlighting. This is not, however, an ideal Universe, as was further
evidenced by the eye-crossing patterns of the inlaid marble floor, and
the way in which the fronting for the eighty-yard long marble-topped
bar had been made. The fronting for the eighty-yard long marble-topped
bar had been made by stitching together nearly twenty thousand
Antarean Mosaic Lizard skins, despite the fact that the twenty
thousand lizards concerned had needed them to keep their insides in.

A few smartly dressed creatures were lounging casually at the bar or
relaxing in the richly coloured body-hugging seats that were deployed
here and there about the bar area. A young Vl'Hurg officer and his
green steaming young lady passed through the large smoked glass doors
at the far end of the bar into the dazzling light of the main body of
the Restaurant beyond.

Behind Arthur was a large curtained bay window. He pulled aside the
corner of the curtain and looked out at a landscape which under normal
circumstances would have given Arthur the creeping horrors. These
were not, however, normal circumstances, for the thing that froze his
blood and made his skin try to crawl up his back and off the top of
his head was the sky. The sky was ...

An attendant flunkey politely drew the curtain back into place.

``All in good time, sir,'' he said.

Zaphod's eyes flashed.

``Hey, hang about you dead guys,'' he said, ``I think we're missing
some ultra-important thing here you know. Something somebody said and
we missed it.''

Arthur was profoundly relieved to turn his attention from what he had
just seen.

He said, ``I said it was a sort of apres ...''

``Yeah, and don't you wish you hadn't?'' said Zaphod, ``Ford?''

``I said it was odd.''

``Yeah, shrewd but dull, perhaps it was ...''

``Perhaps,'' interrupted the green blur who had by this time resolved
into the shape of a small wizened dark-suited green waiter, ``perhaps
you would care to discuss the matter over drinks ...''

``Drinks!'' cried Zaphod, ``that was it! See what you miss if you
don't stay alert.''

``Indeed sir,'' said the waiter patiently. ``If the lady and
gentlemen would care to order drinks before dinner ...''

``Dinner!'' Zaphod exclaimed with passion, ``Listen, little green
person, my stomach could take you home and cuddle you all night for
the mere idea.''

``... and the Universe,'' concluded the waiter, determined not to be
deflected on his home stretch, ``will explode later for your
pleasure.''

Ford's head swivelled towards him. He spoke with feeling.

``Wow,'' he said, ``What sort of drinks do you serve in this place?''

The waiter laughed a polite little waiter's laugh.

``Ah,'' he said, ``I think sir has perhaps misunderstood me.''

``Oh, I hope not,'' breathed Ford.

The waiter coughed a polite little waiter's cough.

``It is not unusual for our customers to be a little disoriented by
the time journey,'' he said, ``so if I might suggest ...''

``Time journey?'' said Zaphod.

``Time journey?'' said Ford.

``Time journey?'' said Trillian.

``You mean this isn't the afterlife?'' said Arthur.

The waiter smiled a polite little waiter's smile. He had almost
exhausted his polite little waiter repertoire and would soon be
slipping into his role of a rather tight lipped and sarcastic little
waiter.

``Afterlife sir?'' he said, ``No sir.''

``And we're not dead?'' said Arthur.

The waiter tightened his lips.

``Aha, ha,'' he said, ``Sir is most evidently alive, otherwise I would
not attempt to serve sir.''

In an extraordinary gesture which is pointless attempting to describe,
Zaphod Beeblebrox slapped both his foreheads with two of his arms and
one of his thighs with the other.

``Hey guys,'' he said, ``This is crazy. We finally did it. We
finally got to where we were going. This is Milliways!''

``Yes sir,'' said the waiter, laying on the patience with a trowel,
``this is Milliways --- the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.''

``End of what?'' said Arthur.

``The Universe,'' repeated the waiter, very clearly and unnecessarily
distinctly.

``When did that end?'' said Arthur.

``In just a few minutes, sir,'' said the waiter. He took a deep
breath. He didn't need to do this since his body was supplied with
the peculiar assortment of gases it required for survival from a small
intravenous device strapped to his leg. There are times, however, when
whatever your metabolism you have to take a deep breath.

``Now, if you would care to order drinks at last,'' he said, ``I will
then show you to your table.''

Zaphod grinned two manic grins, sauntered over to the bar and bought
most of it.